


short change hero

by Anonymous



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, battleground spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It's been a month and I am still not okay with [Battle Ground spoilers].  I am really not.
Relationships: Harry Dresden & Karrin Murphy
Comments: 11
Kudos: 12
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _And what matters ain't the, who's baddest but_   
>  _The ones who stop you fallin' from your ladder_

It was rough, standing there in the middle of all Murph's things. Sometimes I thought I was learning to cope with it--living in the aftermath of a war zone, feeling hundreds of people who'd chosen to follow me die, Murphy no longer being there--and then out of nowhere it'd come over me. Nothing seemed like it made sense anymore, nothing seemed like it had a point anymore. Usually being somewhere where I had responsibilities, like home, with two kids and a dog to look after and a cat to obey, helped me snap out of it, but my only responsibility here was to get Murphy's place cleaned up, and that made her death that much harder to take. I didn't want to sort through her weapons and redistribute the illegal ones as stipulated in her secret will. I didn't want to be stared at by her family photos. I didn't want to open her dresser drawers and bury my nose in one of her oversized t-shirts and not even try not to cry.

I guess I kind of deserved it, by making her in charge of all of my shit when I died, but Murphy had always been more emotionally mature and well-balanced than me.

"Shit," I muttered, and swiped angrily at my eyes. Thinking of her in the past tense already. It hurt.

Michael had offered to be here, to help, but I'd gotten him and his family in enough trouble over the years to ask him to sort through illegal weapons with me. I'd wanted Thomas by my side--he'd been Murphy's friend too, and if anyone knew grief, Thomas did--but he was still half-starving on Demonreach and I felt it'd be cruel to wake him up and tell him his girlfriend was still infected by Outsiders and we had no idea where she and his kid were, and then ask him to give me emotional support. 

Butters had also volunteered, and I'd accepted, even if I didn't feel great about that, even if I still felt a little ashamed every time I saw him. But he was running late, either to give me time or because trying to move around with his injuries wasn't easy, and he'd been Murphy's friend too, and he had his own key, so I didn't think that much of it when I heard the front door open, until I realized--maybe a few minutes too late--that Butters didn't move that quietly, especially not after he'd been wired and plastered up to keep his vertebrae in place. And there was a certain smell, of shampoo, of strawberries, of gunpowder. Of course Murphy's house smelled like her, but this was concentrated, with a whiff of the sweat I'd last tasted in her hairline, on that one night we'd had together, before--

It must have been a memory, I told myself, and then I heard someone say, "I haven't been dead for a month and already you're disrespecting my gear, Dresden."

I spun and sent a box of bullets clattering to the ground, but I could barely hear that over the pounding of my heart, because _she was there_. Her hair was mussed, but it was still as golden as sunlight. She was wearing ill-fitting fatigues, rolled up at the wrists and ankles like Valhalla didn't stock a size XS, and she had a pair of sunglasses pushed up on her head, and a small, crooked smile on her mouth.

And she was alive? She looked alive, at least. The Einherjar I'd seen over the last few years usually did. And they were, more or less. Which meant she was, more or less, but Gard had said--

"Buh," I managed, as Karrin came closer. It had to be her. I was pretty sure the baddies wouldn't dare dress up at her. Or have passed up the opportunity to shiv me in the back. I just didn't know how--

She smiled more broadly at me, and patted my arm. The broken one, but the cast was beneath the duster, so it wasn't like she could know that. "It's okay," she said. "If Vadderung didn't want people breaking out of Einherjar cold storage, he shouldn't walk through gossiping with his ravens."

"I," I began, "buh?"

She leaned over to where I'd been sorting through her things and grabbed a tiny, snub-nosed revolver, slid it into an ankle holster, and then two larger guns. She was moving really well, like all her injuries had been healed in the aforementioned Einherjar cold storage. "I'll explain in more detail later, after I stop Rudolph from endangering civilians ever again. Then we've got some supernatural ass to kick."

"Hell's Bells," I sputtered, "the whole marriage to Lara was Mab's idea, do you think I _want_ \--"

Murphy checked first one gun, then the other, and snorted. "No, genius. I meant Marcone."

I eyed her, trying to figure out how to tell her that I couldn't lose her again without bawling like a baby. "He's a lot harder to kill than he used to be."

"We're not going to kill him. We're just going to make him realize he's been very, very stupid." We? I hadn't agreed to--and then she nodded over her shoulder and I looked past her, through the living room windows, and saw there was a big dark car waiting for her with a familiar ginger giant in the driver's seat.

Marcone wasn't what you'd call a super emotional guy, but I knew him, and I was pretty sure he'd consider an ass-kicking a small price to pay if it meant Hendricks was back. Besides, I wasn't entirely convinced that what Marcone had done was that stupid, which probably meant that Murphy and Hendricks should come back and kick my ass afterwards. "I," I said again.

Murphy snorted, then got all the way up on her tippy-toes, dragged my head down, and kissed me on the cheek. Her fingers twisted in my hair and that was why I was crying a little. Her grip, and gravity. "And after that, I'll be back," she said.

"Yeah," I said, and did not sniffle. 

"And if you don't sort that shit with Lara out like an adult, I will be front row at your wedding with a big tub of popcorn and an airhorn," she said.

"Hey." Watching her walk away was killing me, but I was still rooted to the spot.

She turned before she got to the door. "It's going to be okay, Harry."

"I know," I said, like a nerd who was bad at feelings. But Murph got it, because she grinned at me, and went out to kick some ass.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd once asked Dresden if Marcone jumped off a cliff, would he jump too, and Dresden's response was to turn red and stammer something about a moving train and extenuating circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Marcone and Hendricks reunion, as presented through Murphy's POV because Marcone refuses to admit he has feelings.

There were plenty of buildings under construction in Chicago these days, but Hendricks knew where to go. Gard didn't stop us at the door, even though she looked like she wanted to have a word with her old colleague. It'd keep, I supposed. She also didn't look surprised, so I guessed Vadderung must have sent out a memo about our escape. I wondered if she'd passed that memo on to Marcone, but when Hendricks pushed open the door to the rat bastard's office his eyes widened for a fraction of a second, and I knew she hadn't.

"Mr. Hendricks," he said, and then nodded at me. "Ms. Murphy. I am glad to see you both alive and well."

I snorted and cracked my knuckles, but Hendricks stepped past me, clearing his throat. He went around Marcone's huge, gleaming desk, and Marcone rose as he walked, only the slightest tremor in his hands as they brushed his laptop closed and slid it to the side. Hendricks half-sat on the desk as Marcone stood there, and just _looked_ at him.

Marcone looked back. He didn't make any sudden moves, which was good, because I sort of liked Hendricks, but it was also bad, because if he'd made any sudden moves I'd have to intervene. I'd meant it when I'd told Dresden I didn't want to save the bearers of the coins. Didn't think they deserved saving. Marcone had made a choice. It hadn't been a good one. He wasn't going to be giving up the coin, not with what it could do for him, the power it gave him. I didn't have any pity for him. If I'd been packing one of the Swords--

\--but I wasn't. And Marcone had apparently helped kick that Titanic bitch's ass, so unless Hendricks gave me the signal, I was going to play nice, and it didn't look like Hendricks was going to give me the signal any time soon. Hendricks wasn't going to do anything but stare at Marcone any time soon; they were having one of those silent, complicated, facial-expressions-only conversations that was a combination of Advanced Martian and the kind of understanding you get by being around someone all the time. Rawlins says his ex can communicate all kinds of trouble with her eyebrows and her jaw, and I guess Hendricks and Marcone could too. There were minuscule tics and shifts in posture; there were blinks; there was finally an exasperated sigh from Hendricks, and then, disappointingly, Hendricks wrapping Marcone in a bear hug and not trying to smother him at all.

Dammit. I guess I wasn't going to get to kick his ass after all.

"I'm not giving him up," said Marcone quietly, once the hug had ended. "I told him I wouldn't."

Hendricks shot his boss a look, and I cleared my throat, probably struck by the same horrible suspicion. "Out of curiosity, did you frame it as you were never going to give him up and never going to let him down?"

I could read the silence that followed as confirmation that John Marcone had fucking rickrolled a fallen angel. "You and Dresden are terrible influences on one another," I said.

"No more play dates," Hendricks agreed. I was really getting to like him, especially since that made Marcone's mouth tighten and eyes narrow in annoyance.

"What is particular about that wording?" asked a voice that sounded like Marcone putting on a British accent. Even though I'd heard about the demon earlier, it still startled me to see the purple eyes open in his forehead, the trace of a sigil above them.

"It's a song and declaration of faith for our modern times," Marcone said smoothly, and the eyes closed.

"Dresden doesn't even know what a rickroll is," I muttered, and Marcone made that vaguely annoyed face again, the one that reminded me of indignant cats.

But he couldn't fool me. I'd spent a lot of my childhood breaking up fights and negotiating truces among my younger brothers. I'd worked, for over two decades, in a field that was stiflingly full of testosterone. I was fluent in Martian. Marcone was much subtler than Harry about this sort of thing, but there were freight trains that were more subtle than Harry Dresden. At one point I might have been relieved that the craziness between them was a two-way street, but that had been before Marcone had gone Knight of the Blackened Denarius on us.

I'd once asked Dresden if Marcone jumped off a cliff, would he jump too, and Dresden's response was to turn red and stammer something about a moving train and extenuating circumstances. I wouldn't deny Marcone's usefulness as an ally--I didn't like it, but I wouldn't deny it--but sometimes when he and Harry got together it was like watching two teenage boys with a sled and sloped roof, or a box of firecrackers, except what they actually had were insane supernatural powers and half the city government in his pocket and a small army of thugs and now even more insane supernatural powers. By themselves they could behave, sort of, but stick them together for five minutes and they ramped up the recklessness to eleven in a dumb adolescent attempt to impress one another, despite fervently denying that they didn't care what the other thought of him, why would they, yuck. Though if they wanted anyone to believe that, they should probably try to stop spending so much time staring into each other's eyes and smiling like idiots.

Despite what I'd told Harry, it hadn't really been the news about Namshiel that had led to me and Hendricks breaking out, not really. It'd been the sheer horror of the dumb shit Dresden and Marcone would get up to without anyone sane standing by their sides.

"Better that way," said Hendricks, and for a second I thought he was reading my mind, and then I realized he was talking about the rickroll.

He was right anyway. We exchanged a nod, and then I swallowed my disappointment about having to wait to kick Marcone's ass, and headed back out of the building. I had a vampire wedding to heckle, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I miss Murphy so goddamn much. And Hendricks too. :(
> 
> Also, Marcone, things can be both very brave and very stupid, you're in a deserted locker room with someone who manages that 99% of the time.


End file.
